Bob Katter the spoiler | Will he spoil the party for 'Can Do' Campbell

No preference deal for Katter's party

AAP

Monday, February 20, 2012

© The Cairns Post

Confident: Katter's Australia Party leader Bob Katter (right) with member for Beaudesert Aidan McLindon at Canungra's Outpost Cafe for the Party's campaign launch. Picture: TIM MARSDEN

Katter's Australian Party predicts Labor incumbent Kate Jones won't need its preferences to retain the crucial seat of Ashgrove in the Queensland election.

Federal leader and Kennedy independent MP Bob Katter and state leader Aidan McLindon announced yesterday the party would not direct preferences to either Labor or the Liberal National Party.

The announcement came after speculation they would do a preference swap deal between Ms Jones in Ashgrove and Mr McLindon in Beaudesert.

But Mr McLindon said in his electorate yesterday he had been friends with Ms Jones for 16 years, and was confident she was "strong" enough to retain Ashgrove herself. She will be battling LNP leader Campbell Newman for the seat, who must win if he is to become premier. Mr McLindon said after studying the policies of both major parties, he could not find any differences. "It’s very, very clear to see the ALP and Liberals have become two heads of the same creature," Mr McLindon said. "We’re not in a position in good conscience to preference either of those parties."

The party would negotiate with minor parties and independents on a seat-by-seat basis, Mr McLindon said. "We will look at the merits or otherwise of their policy positions and what they believe in," he said.

Mr Katter said the decision not to direct preferen-ces came down to principle rather than politics. "We’ve got to do what we consider the right thing to do," he said. "It’s pretty hypocritical if we put, ‘It’s the principle of it’ on our logo and then go out saying, ‘Well, we’ll get two more votes if we go this way than if we go that way’. "If they want preferences, then they should come forward with policies that will say the sort of things that we’re saying."

Mr Katter said his party could not give preferences to the two major parties because of their "flawed" support for the coal seam gas industry and their economic performance, including that of Mr Newman in his time as Brisbane’s lord mayor.

But he said the biggest sticking point was both parties’ refusal to block plans from mining companies to bring in foreign labour to work in the state’s mines. "One of them (Labor) refuses to say that they haven’t discussed bringing in 14,000 workers – in other words, they’ve admitted that they’re bringing in 14,000 foreign workers to take all our jobs off us," he said. "And the other party, the LNP leader (Mr Newman) has steadfastly refused to say he’s going to stop it."

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